I find flunking a test based on one answer problematic. But I also wouldn't use FYI or OK on a test. Even in the dark days before texting, I told my students that we were using formal academic English on everything except their journals, and that they'd be graded accordingly. Would I have dismissed the rest of the test because of one IDK? Not at the beginning of the semester. At the end, hell yeah. Of course, if they didn't know better by that point they probably wouldn't have learned much else, either, so odds are I wouldn't have been trashing an otherwise perfect work.

In Sis' case, she went extreme at the beginning because for two years she has tried subtle and if there is one that she has learned about her students, it's that they don't get subtle. Big screaming fail, however, they get. Now, it's out there, everyone knows it, and from here on out they have no excuse not to use spelled out English words on short answers.

In Sis' case, she went extreme at the beginning because for two years she has tried subtle and if there is one that she has learned about her students, it's that they don't get subtle.

So now this girl is being punished for the actions of students in previous years' classes. How is that okay?

(I really really hate the "make an example of someone" method of teaching. For any reason, under any circumstances. It turns my stomach.)

I just got a letter stating my insurance company will cover breast reduction surgery. Wow. I'm impressed and scared.

I can understand the urge to go extreme. I think a public beheading of a child the first couple of days is an effective way of modifying behavior, because most kids assume those first actions have no consequences so they press boundaries.

I think failing a kid for using IDK on an answer where they were told to be clever is more extreme than I'd go personally. In situations like that I have just opted not to grade the paper and said that the child would have a zero until things were done correctly. It's the same short term result with the net long term possibility of fixing it and redemption in general.

I do have a zero tolerance policy for copying off of someone's papers and I will publicly humiliate both copier and copy-ee in the process of giving them a zero. But I'm pretty upfront about it.

I just got a letter stating my insurance company will cover breast reduction surgery. Wow. I'm impressed and scared.

Considering that it can prevent other medical problems this is a good thing. Not that insurance companies see the big picture so clearly very often.

Then again, I'm a bad example, because I'm returning their sonnets they wrote today while wearing a tshirt that says, "Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

So now this girl is being punished for the actions of students in previous years' classes. How is that okay?

As a whole, it's not. In some individual cases, it is sometimes the only way to get a point across.

And for the record, it's not her method of teaching. It's a tool that can be used as reinforcement with a class to illustrate expectations. It's the same thing as reading a wonderfully written paper out loud to the class to illustrate good writing.

I just got a letter stating my insurance company will cover breast reduction surgery. Wow.

Wow indeed! And yay for you!